The real witch-hunter
Young Matthew Hopkins was lowered into an unmarked grave. He had breathed his last, rasping, tubercular breath in his mid 20s on 12 August 1647, 375 years ago.
Unremarkable in death but terrifying in life, Matthew Hopkins grew up in a God-fearing household in Great Wenham, Suffolk, to become Britain’s self-styled Witchfinder General.
He believed in a Christian-driven mission to find women feared as witches and provide proof of their witchcraft to send them to trial. Convictions then led them straight to the gallows.
Between 1645 and 1647 Hopkins, the son of a rector, and comfortably off with an inheritance, wreaked havoc in East Anglia. He dressed in bucket-top boots with spurs, a broad linen collar, cape, and hat, and was accompanied by his pet greyhound, and sidekick John Stearne. Communities, gripped by
